Food news from around the internet for October 10, 2013.

It’s the afternoon, and you deserve a break. Sit back, pour yourself a glass, and enjoy these food stories from around the Internet.

The Links

The ongoing government shutdown is exposing some weird—and troubling—quirks of our food-safety system. For instance, did you know that open-faced sandwiches with meat fall under the jurisdiction of the USDA, whose inspectors are furloughed, while closed, meat-filled sandwiches are inspected by the FDA, which is still operating? Yeah, we didn't either. [Quartz]

Scientists are developing a way to use brainwaves to determine how much customers are willing to pay for a product. Looks like people are willing to pay much more than the current going rate for a cup of coffee at Starbucks, at least in Stuttgart, Germany. [Der Spiegel via Eater]

In Italy, the King of Beers recently lost a legal battle that would allow it to call itself Budweiser instead of "Bud". The winner of the name game? Czech-based Budweiser Budejovicky Budvar. The two companies have apparently have been to court over various trademark tiffs in over 20 countries for more than a century. [Quartz]

The folks at Gizmodo found that salt and pepper are ubiquitous on dining tables thanks to Louis XIV, who banned the use of nearly all spices outside of salt, pepper, and parsley during his rule. Since most people listened to kings without question back then, the trend of only keeping salt and pepper at the table eventually spread throughout Europe and the Americas. The rest, as everyone says, is history. [Gizmodo]

Today in cute things: Remember that time you ate too much at dinner and vowed never to eat again? Well, that's what this 3-year-old is experiencing, except his mother is filming the whole thing. Fast forward 18 years, and he'll probably be saying all the same things about drinking too much the night before, though maybe not to Mom. [Gawker]

The Drinks

This Curry-Spiced Bloody Mary is an excellent example of how both salt and black pepper can help make an awesome cocktail.